


Genus Loci

by NewEyes



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-21
Updated: 2012-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-29 21:04:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewEyes/pseuds/NewEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mrs Hudson is the spirit guardian of England.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Genus Loci

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on LJ: Mrs Hudson leaves Baker Street, England falls.

She can't remember how many years she has been alive; she got to six hundred years and then sort of lost count. The Romans brought her into existence with their belief in genius loci, the spirit guardians of places. When they had arrived from mainland Europe in their ships their belief had popped her into existence. For many hundreds of years, she did not take corporeal form, she felt no need. She was simply everywhere, all seeing, all knowing, all powerful. She was the rivers and the hills and the valleys. She was the cities and the roads and the villages. She was the rain that fell, the sun that shone, the thunder that crashed. As long as it was England, she was part of it.

But then the modern age came, full of science and progress. Fewer and fewer people believed in her. Her power dwindled, her reach lessened. With the last of her power she eventually took human form, as a young girl.

She wandered. For years. Miles and miles, along roads and through countryside; but she was never lost. As her power gradually lessened she found herself looking older. She was aging, at a slower rate than mortals but aging all the same. The travelling became awkward; the constant walking and the sleeping where she fell took a certain toll.

She found it natural to settle the country’s heart Londium, or London as they seemed to be calling it no. So many people. She married a man and became Mrs Hudson, all the humans were doing it and according to everything she had heard and read, it was supposed to be amazing.

It was terrible. He tried to keep her inside, cutting her off from the rest of her land. When she defied him, he kept her there by force.

It made her immeasurably angry that five hundred years ago he would no more have been able to stop her than a breeze could stop a hurricane.

It also made her immensely sad.

For the first time ever, she felt small.

Then a whirlwind came with the name of Sherlock Holmes and then Mr Hudson was gone. She could be herself again. But it was too late, she had little power and her body was too old. She felt tired all the time and had problems with her hip and with walking. The two young men moved in upstairs and they were always busy; moving, being alive, having adventures. They both loved this city, she knew and even if it wasn’t the same as her love for the whole of England, the beautiful land that she had been brought into existence to protect, they were only human after all. She felt a little better about the death she knew was coming.

No-one in England truly believed in genus loci anymore.

She died quietly and suddenly in the spring of 2014. She had no relatives of course, but Mr Hudson had a sister who had decided to take the ashes. The sister, called Alicia, whom Mrs Hudson had never met, lived in America and had the ashes shipped there.

The next four weeks in England were not good ones. There were several freak flash floods, as well as thunderstorms. There was another economic crisis, and just as things appeared to be getting better, the experts said. There was a strange uptick in violent deaths and environmentalists were worried about the recent sudden drop in the number of wildlife they were seeing.

During this time, the two men who had lived in the flat upstairs were fighting to get her ashes back to where they belonged. Of course, Sherlock’s older brother helped ease the way.

And then she was back in England and everything seemed to right itself somehow. No-one ever really made the connection.

Although one man did wonder.

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of imagine it in the same universe as Neil Gaiman's American Gods, in case anyone is interested.


End file.
